Escape from Extinction: Rewilding (2024) Movie Script
1
- We must act now. The
Earth is in crisis.
- We're facing a
sixth mass extinction event,
with up to a quarter of
all species on the planet
threatened with extinction.
- What is the
cost of indifference?
- We've identified
around 40,000
threatened species.
- Where is
our point of no return?
- Thirst for consumption-
- Deforestation and overfishing.
- Fossil fuel addiction.
- The growing
threat to our natural world.
- When are
self-inflicted wounds
too deep to heal?
- We cut down
old growth forests.
We pollute our water.
- Numerous
vulnerable species
targeted by poachers.
- We have done so
much harm to nature.
If nature is not healthy,
we won't be surviving this.
- If Earth is our home,
how many windows can we smash?
How many bricks can we remove?
- Populations are dwindling-
- How much can
we crack the foundation
before it all comes
crumbling down?
- The house is on fire.
- We really only have about
a decade to turn things around.
- It's time to take action.
- Rising global temperatures-
- Drought, storms, and floods.
- It's the life
support system of people
and the whole planet.
- Ocean dead zone.
- Things are bad and
it's getting worse.
- Habitats vanished.
- We waited until
it was too late.
- To eventual human extinction.
- Extinction.
- Extinction.
- 1 million species.
- 1 million species.
- And we are losing 1 million
species within the next year.
- And the
biggest question of all,
can we still win this war
when so much has
already been lost?
An international army of
wildlife protectors says yes.
- Chief Veterinary Officer
and animal ethicist.
- I'm the animal
and plant director-
- Director of science-
- Global director
of Humane Conservation.
- President
and chief executive officer.
- Honorary Professor
of the university.
- PhD.
- PhD.
- Neuro-
- Physiology.
- The world's
leading animal experts,
veterinarians and
scientists are fighting
to save our planet,
standing up to misinformation.
- Our fossil fuel
use has protected us.
It's taken an unsafe
climate and made it safe.
- And
choosing facts...
- The world's hottest
day on record...
- Over fear.
Solutions over slogans.
Science over special interests.
- We're in a war and
most people don't even know
this war even exists.
- This is a lifetime battle,
a multi-generational battle.
No mistake, we're fighting a war
to keep these animals alive.
- When you think
of animals in the wild,
it's a term we all use
all the time, right?
But there's very
little wild left.
- What
does wild truly mean?
When every corner of the
globe is connected and mapped
and touched by human hands?
Is wild a pure state of nature,
self-generating and
beyond human control?
Every acre of wild
lands requires expertise
and stewardship, from
a mix of government,
indigenous and
private management.
- There's no place
on Earth which is not
under human control.
We control the whole globe,
so there's nothing
that is not artificial
all over the world.
- Farms, fishing, mining
and logging
penetrate ever deeper
into tropical rainforests
and national parks
from Southeast Asia to
South America and Africa.
- One of my worst experiences
was a visit on Madagascar
and then I was almost crying
when I saw what is gone.
Now we're standing in
a forest without trees
and no chance for
animals to survive.
- Not even
Antarctica can escape our grasp.
Considered the last true
wilderness on Earth,
over two thirds of
the South Pole's
land mass is now affected
by human activity.
- And that's the reality.
There is no nature or wild left.
- We have 8 billion people
living here on the planet.
We take so much space
and there's only
a little bit space left.
- The human being
is the only organism
on the Earth today that
can make a difference.
They either can screw
it up or fix it.
The animals can't do that.
- A bold new
approach to conservation science
asks us to dream
bigger, and wilder.
Instead of just
preventing the extinctions
of our favorite animals,
what if we could rebuild
the patterns and connections
that support entire ecosystems?
- Rewilding is about bringing
back a natural habitat
to its original form.
- I think rewilding in
a more general sense
is about leaving things messier,
leaving nature to regenerate.
- Like shifting
pieces of a living puzzle,
the addition or subtraction
of one new piece can impact
the fates of so many others.
- Rewilding is a relatively
new concept where we try
to restore nature
and reintroduce the
natural processes
that got lost many years ago,
giving space for the
biodiversity that
we need to get back.
- Rewilding
projects have taken root
on every continent,
in every biome.
Restoring of the
lush kelp forests
of the California coast,
rebuilding the intricate webs
of life in the rainforests
of Bolivia, renewing the
human-wildlife connection
across the vast and
varied climates of Africa.
In this quest for successful
biodiversity models,
no nation has engineered a
more remarkable turnaround
than Rwanda, a country
that rebuilt its ecosystems
and its economy from
the ashes of tragedy.
For most of the 20th century,
Rwanda was a
biodiversity hotspot,
but in 1994, Rwanda
erupted in violence.
- In 100 days, 800,000
people were killed.
- With basic survival at stake,
it's easy to understand
why wildlife conservation
was a low priority.
The Rwandan government
was in dire need of land
to shelter hundreds of
thousands of displaced people.
Their only option
was to open the doors
of the country's largest
wildlife preserve,
Akagera National Park, shrinking
the park's protected area
to one third of
its original size.
New conflicts exploded,
this time between
humans and animals.
Desperate Rwandans
poached bush meat to feed
their starving families.
Rhino horns were an easy
source of illegal revenue,
one that caused the extinction
of the region's entire
rhino population.
Lions died off, poisoned
by angry cattle herders
in retaliation for killing
the livestock so crucial
to their survival.
The conflict was clear.
The locals needed land
and food security,
while the nation needed to
revive its ecotourism economy.
But Rwanda was quickly losing
its most precious resource,
the animals themselves.
- Rwanda has moved forward
since those dark days,
both politically
and economically.
- The new government
recognized the importance
of restoring wildlife to
rebuilding the Rwandan economy.
Akagera had the potential
to be the economic engine
of the entire Rwandan nation,
a global attraction on par
with the iconic parks like
Kruger in South Africa.
But the benefits had
to outweigh the costs
for the people most
directly affected.
- The public opinion
is critically important
for wildlife conservation.
- You cannot protect and
save species against people.
You have to do it together
with the people living there.
- We have to show them
that Akagera National Park
is their assets.
- And valuable
assets need protection.
The eastern edge of the park
had an effective natural
boundary, the Kagera River,
but the western side needed
additional safeguarding.
- Rewilded areas are
fenced because most
of these areas
we're talking about,
they're surrounded by
farmland and we don't want
the animals we reintroduce
to go out on the field
because then they'll
destroy the crops,
thereby the income
of the farmer.
- The idea of
fencing the animals
was to keep them
away from people.
- The fence really,
really help us to manage
a human-wild conflict.
- The next
step, share the benefits
of a healthy Akagera directly
with the locals
living alongside.
- It's all about survival.
We cannot achieve conservation
when the communities are hungry.
- There is no way that
we can save wildlife
if we do not also
have happy communities
and healthy communities
in these ecosystems.
- As long as the
communities don't feel
the economic incentive derived
from wildlife areas,
protected areas,
they'll not value them.
- All the Rwanda
parks contribute 10%
of the tourist income.
They put that in a fund
and with that money
we just ask the community
or the local authority
what they need for the
community around the park.
- The park revenues
also support local jobs,
everything from
construction to beekeeping.
- Rwanda is a grand
success and it's a success
because they brought together
multiple different groups
to create an ecosystem,
an ecosystem that
addresses food security,
an ecosystem that addresses
the local economic needs.
- Those successes paved
the way for the reintroduction
of iconic megafauna,
the so-called big
five African mammals,
attracting legions of
international visitors
and crucial tourism revenues.
Lions were brought back first.
Since genetic diversity
in a small population
is so important, the
translocated lions were drawn
from several different regions.
Each individual
lion in South Africa
was carefully
studied and selected
by population biologists
based on genetics
and their potential to
breed and thrive in Rwanda.
- We can't have
inbreeding of animals.
- The more genetic
diversity a population has,
the more adaptable
it is to any kind
of potential changes
which may come along.
- The communities
that once poisoned the lions
now celebrated their return.
- If there's a benefit
from wildlife, sustainable
benefit, there'll be a future.
- These misfit
lions bonded together
and formed a pride.
The initial group of 12
lions bred and thrived.
The electric fencing kept lions
from hunting
domesticated cattle,
while keeping the lions'
natural prey within reach.
- Well, the carnivore
is a very important part
of the ecosystem.
They take care of a lot
of the surplus of animals
that we would otherwise
have to take out
of the population
in order to keep
the population size adapted
to the available habitat,
so in order not to
graze everything down.
- Most recently,
Akagera reintroduced
the iconic black rhino.
Akagera's wildlife experts
teamed up with an alliance
of European zoos.
- That breeding
population that we've got
within European zoos can now
act as founders to go back
to helping in some
of those countries.
- Jasiri is one
of several black rhinos
now living in Rwanda.
Her long journey home
started in a small zoo
in the Czech Republic.
Sickly and underweight
baby rhinos are not
the typical candidates to
restore native populations.
Her birth weight was only half
that of a normal
black rhino calf.
Even worse, she was too
small and weak to latch
onto her mother for the milk
that would keep her alive.
Zoo veterinarians
fed the baby rhino
from a bottle around the clock.
After 10 days, Jasiri
was finally able to nurse
on her own, without any
need for human assistance.
She grew into a strong
and healthy calf
and was soon chosen to
help restore her species
in its native land.
- A group of five black rhinos
were all pulled together
from different European zoos.
And now Jasiri is one
of those five rhinos
that's actually gone
to Rwanda to help save
the black rhino in
Akagera National Park.
- The achievements
at Akagera created a blueprint
for successful conservation
work throughout Rwanda.
Volcanoes National Park
is Africa's first
national protected area,
best known as the research site
of the well-known American
primatologist, Dian Fossey.
It's also the home of Rwanda's
iconic mountain gorillas,
who share 98.2% of human DNA.
These gentle giants were
decimated by poachers
throughout the 1970s.
By the early 1980s,
scientists estimated only
220 remaining in the wild.
Park rangers rarely
enforced anti-poaching laws.
Corruption and
bribery were rampant.
Baby gorillas were cruelly
stolen from their mothers
and sold to the highest bidder,
devastating gorilla families
like this one, the Agashyas.
The Agashya family
counts 36 gorillas spanning
multiple generations.
Like human families, the
Agashyas show a wide range
of personalities and emotions.
Gorilla mothers experience
pregnancy and parenthood
much like humans.
Gestation takes nine
months and mothers dote
on their newborns with
close care and affection
for the first several
years of life.
The children laugh and play
under the parents'
watchful eyes.
Gorillas even mourn their dead,
crying at the loss
of a loved one.
The decades following
the civil war
have seen remarkable recovery
for gorilla families
like the Agashya,
as a new of African
conservationists fights to save
the mountain gorilla
from extinction,
a profound shift for a
culture where poaching
was deeply entrenched.
- The previous generations
was killing and harmed
the animals, but now
we are protecting
and conserving these gorillas.
- If they don't poach,
but protect as a ranger,
it's so good to have them
on board because they
are the experts.
They know the places
the best, you know.
They know where the animals
are, how they behave,
where to find them.
- Compared to
poaching or illegal herding
on parkland, ecotourism jobs
could offer a better payday
and a better life.
- Better to become
a conservationist rather
than being a poacher,
because if you take care
of natural resources,
everybody gets benefits.
- The gorilla
numbers increased
in just a few short years.
By 1989, tourism
had quickly become
Rwanda's largest single source
of badly needed foreign dollars.
The Rwandan economy was
now permanently linked
to the gorilla's survival.
In 2015, the national
governments of Rwanda,
Uganda and the Democratic
Republic of Congo signed
a treaty to formally collaborate
on conservation, tourism,
land management,
law enforcement,
and community conservation.
- We are having
1060 mountain gorillas.
- It's a
point of national pride
that the gorillas have
been reclassified out
of the critically endangered
level on the IUCN Red List.
- The IUCN Red List is like
the currency of conservation.
It tells us how good
or how bad it's going
for different species.
- Now that
locals have a stake
in the gorilla's protection,
they take a more active
role in reporting
poaching and other illegal
activity in the park.
As the gorilla numbers have
thrived, so too has ecotourism.
Curious nature lovers from
all over the world travel
to Rwanda for the
mountain gorilla trek.
Tourists are allowed to come
close to the mountain gorillas.
Not close enough to spread
disease or interfere
with the animals'
natural behaviors,
but enough to experience
how gorillas live.
The biggest challenge
is a familiar one,
too many animals and
humans in need of land.
- The gorilla population grow,
but the gorilla habitat
remain the same.
That's why we need to
work on park expansion.
- The park expansion
will give the gorillas
the space they need
to grow and thrive,
while improving the lives
of local communities
by sharing material
benefits from ecotourism,
paid for entirely by
families like the Agashya.
The park will become larger
by approximately 23%.
A new buffer zone separating
the expanded parkland
from human areas aims to
reduce human-wildlife conflict
and restore more of the
ecosystem's natural processes.
The Rwandan government estimates
the park expansion will
result in a 20% increase
in mountain gorilla
ecotourism revenues.
Those revenues will be shared
with the local communities
in concrete, tangible ways.
Several thousand homes will
be moved and resettled,
so the land can be rewilded
into a self-sustaining
gorilla habitat.
These households, often
lacking electricity
and running water, will be
compensated with new homes
in a modern housing development,
plus a land grant for
income-generating activities
like agriculture,
a nursery school, a health
clinic, markets, roads,
community banks, expanded
internet services,
modern electrical and water
supply infrastructure,
all paid for by mountain
gorilla ecotourism revenues.
The park expansion will
put $70 million back
into local communities.
The incredible resilience
of the Rwandan people
and their forward-
thinking protection
of precious ecological
treasures is an inspiring lesson
for the rest of the world.
The health and fortune
of human communities
and their surrounding wildlife
are deeply connected now
and into the future.
- Rewilding is the ability
to bring our species back
into their native ranges,
and that's happening
all around the world.
- The bottom line is
that habitat is the key
to preventing species from
going extinct, pristine habitat.
- Often what we leave
behind is not the best part
of the habitat.
We leave behind
swamps and mountains.
We take all the fertile
ground and then we wonder
where the animals that used
to live in that area are gone.
And so it is really important
that we protect as much
of the planet that
we can that's left,
and we actively
start moving some
of the agricultural land,
some of the park land,
all the land that we live
on, how do we make it wilder?
How do we introduce more species
and more diversity
back into these areas?
- When we do rewilding, we
need to find the balance
between losing control
and taking a little bit
of control that is needed
in order to make
sure that the animals
have a proper welfare.
- And so it's a continuum.
You have what is wild over here,
which is shrinking daily, up
to completely managed care.
- As true
wilderness disappears,
semi-managed habitats
play a crucial role
in the modern spectrum
of wildlife conservation.
- The semi-managed
habitat is one
where we reintroduce
animals into the wild,
but we still have some
kind of ongoing management
of that population
to help protect them.
- One
rewilding method involves
transforming non-productive
farmland into natural reserves,
like this 600 hectare
farm in Bolivia purchased
by Loro Parque.
- We bought a farm and we
turned it into a habitat
which is a protected area.
- We maintain inside
puma, jaguar, capybaras.
It's amazing how many
monkeys are inside.
- We have the anteaters.
We have caiman.
We have lots of other birds
and fishes because there
are no humans predating them.
We don't allow people
to step in or to walk
through and it's
just for animals.
- And by moving away
from this species-
level conservation
towards ecosystem-
level conservation,
we can have cascading
conservation effects,
which ultimately impact hundreds
if not thousands of species.
- The new reserve
has thrived as a fortress
for a wide range of animals,
including one of the world's
rarest and most beloved birds.
- Blue-throated macaw
in Bolivia is very rare.
less than 400 individuals
are counted in nature.
- Bolivia has
experienced a rapid loss of
forest over the past decades,
primarily due to
industrial agriculture.
The tropical savannas of Bolivia
are the only natural habitat
for the blue-throated macaw.
The population of
the blue-throated
macaw has plummeted
in the 1970s and '80s
when they were captured
by the thousands and
sold as exotic pets.
Live exports were
banned in 1984,
but a thriving illegal
trade decimated the birds
to the point of
extinction in the wild.
Or so we thought.
In 1992, 50 individuals
were found in one pocket
of Bolivian forest.
But decades of rampant logging,
burning and grazing
had severely reduced
the birds' ideal habitat and
their primary food source.
The nuts and fruits of
the motacu palm nourish
a wide range of animals.
It's also the only tree
where the blue-throated
macaw will nest,
in particular old or dead trees
with hollowed-out cavities
high in the trunks
to protect them from predators.
- One of the problem of
the blue-throated macaw
is that they can't find
opportunities to breed.
- A crisis emerged,
suitable nesting trees
were in short supply.
The scientists
overseeing the habitat
had planted new motacu palms
to replace the trees
lost to deforestation.
But the trunks of these
new trees didn't yet
have the hollow cavities
favored by the macaws
as nesting sites.
Manmade problems required
manmade solutions.
- To help the species to
establish in the reserve
we put up nest boxes,
so we offer them possibilities
for nesting and sleeping
in a protective area.
- The boxes
allowed biologists to observe
the macaws' nesting behavior
up close and improve
the design to maximize
breeding success.
One feature of a
semi-managed habitat
is greater accessibility
for human caretakers.
That proximity
allowed scientists
to quickly address problems
that might otherwise
go unnoticed.
The entrances were made smaller,
to keep out potential predators.
The interiors were expanded
to offer more space
for the fledgling chicks.
Over 100 chicks
have been born from nest boxes
since their introduction.
With fewer than 500
individuals in the wild,
blue-throated macaw is
still critically endangered.
- When we restore
nature and habitat,
we often expect that the
species will rebound by itself.
That's not always true.
Some species are such
big trouble that we need
to give them intensive care.
- Thanks to the
imagination and dedication
of local wildlife experts,
the region is now a thriving
habitat in the fight
to restore the
blue-throated macaw.
- And I'm quite
proud about this,
but it has to be much more.
- Loro Parque's success
in rewilding farmland
has established a valuable
model for other zoos
to emulate an ecosystem-
based approach
to saving vulnerable animals
on the brink of extinction,
from the Dublin Zoo's work
rewilding Irish peatlands,
and restoring red panda
habitat in the forests of Nepal
to Seattle's Woodland
Park Zoo funding
a marine reserve sheltering half
of Peru's Humboldt
Penguins whose populations
are on the brink.
- I don't think that the
decision is to intervene all
over the world, at least not
actively managing ecosystems.
But certainly our
intervention has to be lower
the pressure in many parts,
so for these
ecosystems to recover.
- If forests
are the planet's lungs,
oceans are its lifeblood.
No other biome
has such an impact
on Earth's weather,
temperature, or food supply.
Our planet supports
a broad spectrum
of oceanic environments:
deep ocean,
coral reefs, mangrove swamps.
One of the planet's
most biodiverse
and productive marine
ecosystems is the kelp forest
of the Pacific coast
of North America.
Like Earth's
terrestrial forests,
kelp anchors a vast and
intricate web of life.
Kelp grows in shallow water,
where it can drink in the
sunlight, forming thick beds,
providing food and shelter for
over 1,000 different species.
- Everything from the sea
otters that we know and adore,
all the way down to the
sea urchins and the abalone
that they depend on to eat.
There are salmon, rock
fishes, sea stars,
sponges, bryozoans.
So many different species
depend on kelp forests
to provide them the habitat
they need to survive.
- So it's a cascading effect,
and all of them are important.
- Kelp forests help mediate
against ocean acidification
because it helps regulate
the balance of CO2 in the ocean.
So they're taking
carbon dioxide in
and they're putting
oxygen back out.
- The CO2 that is coming
from the atmosphere
that we are releasing, this
CO2 is passing to the ocean,
and when it passes to the
ocean, it becomes acid.
- Like human
bones made weak and fragile
by osteoporosis, the
calcium-based shells
of crucial species are
dissolving before our very eyes.
The loss of filter
feeders like oysters harms
the entire ecosystems.
Their ability to
filter excess nitrogen,
bacteria and sediment is
crucial to healthy oceans.
Reduction efforts haven't
kept pace with the rapid rate
of ocean acidification.
- Are we gonna wait until
the ocean is so acidic
there's gonna be
no life left in it?
- The health of
the kelp forest is shaped
by this ecosystem engineer.
- Sea otters are what
keep the other species
in that ecosystem in check,
so that the kelp
forests themselves can
survive and thrive.
- Sea otters feed
on sea urchins and the
sea urchins feed on kelp.
So once the sea
otters are removed,
the urchins explode
in abundance,
they eat the kelp and
prevent it regeneration,
so the whole forest collapses.
And with the loss of the forest,
all the species associated
to it go as well.
- Kelp forests,
they can't survive and thrive
without healthy sea
otter populations.
- These cascades of
extinction, once a species
that is keystone in the
ecosystem, disappears,
make others go away without
us even knowing about.
- Thousands
of otters now swim
along the Pacific coast,
but hardly a full recovery
from their peak population.
Before the dawn of
commercial hunting,
an estimated 300,000
otters ranged the coasts
from Baja California
to the northern islands
of Alaska, Russia and Japan.
Fur traders exploring
the Pacific coast
soon discovered what
was already known
to the local indigenous tribes
like the Tongva and Chumash.
The fur of the sea otter
is thick, plush and warm,
perfect for a
luxurious winter coat.
Insatiable demand for otter
pelts led to a century
and a half of
ruthless over hunting,
until those 300,000
otters were nearly gone.
Trade in otter fur was
banned worldwide in 1911,
but by then the damage was done.
The once abundant otter
populations of the west coast
had now vanished from Baja
California to Washington state.
until 1938, when several
dozen otters were found
in the waters off Big Sur
in central California.
This tiny remnant population
of southern otters
had somehow survived.
All sea otters now swimming
off the coast of California
are descendants of this one
hardy group of survivors.
- One rewilding success for
us in the state of Washington
is the reintroduction
of sea otters
to the Washington coastline.
- In 1969, state
wildlife agencies moved a group
of otters from Alaska
to the Washington coast.
Their goal, repopulate
native otter ranges
in the Pacific Northwest.
- They've come back.
We have almost 3,000 animals
in the State of Washington,
and as a result,
we have thriving kelp forest
ecosystems on our coast.
- And bringing
sea otters back,
they start feeding on the
urchins, kelp regenerate,
and then other species
that live around
the whole ecosystem
recover as well.
- On North
America's other coastline,
a different marine ecosystem
faces parallel challenges.
Similar to kelp's role
on the Pacific coast,
sea grass is a
crucial building block
for its marine ecosystem.
It absorbs twice as
much carbon per acre
as the tropical rainforest.
It cycles nutrients from
the soil to the water,
while filtering out pollutants
and sediment to help keep
the water quality clean,
clear and healthy.
Seagrasses also form the basis
of an intricate food web,
nourishing everything from
microalgae and crustaceans
to fish and birds, to
sea turtles and manatees.
- Seagrasses all around the
world, as we're learning,
are also providing
this ecosystem service
of mediating against
ocean acidification.
But climate change
is wreaking havoc
on these ecosystems
'cause they're really
sensitive to temperature.
And so as the sea
water is warming up,
we're losing our seagrass beds.
- The cascading effects
of global warming are like
a Jenga game where all
the pieces fit just
perfectly together
and you remove one and the
whole thing falls apart.
That's impacting our manatees.
- Weighing
in at 2000 pounds,
manatees have a gentle
disposition and playful nature
that has delighted
humans for generations.
At the same time,
humans are the manatees'
only real predator.
Coastal habitat loss,
industrial agriculture
and boat collisions form
the most immediate threats
to the manatees' future.
As recently as the 1960s,
manatee populations in
Florida dipped below 1000.
Decades of habitat restoration,
new boating regulations
and awareness campaigns
have pushed their numbers
to an unstable 7,500.
But global air and sea
temperatures are soaring,
with heat records
broken each year.
- It's been a week of record
breaking heat around the world.
- Excess
heat in the atmosphere
is absorbed by the ocean.
Marine ecosystems are
already suffering.
- Snow crabbing
season in Alaska's Bering Sea
is canceled for the
second year in a row
after billions of
crabs disappeared
over the last couple of years.
- All signs point to
warming ocean waters.
- It was evidently
a population collapse
and that 10 billion snow
crabs had disappeared.
- The
warmer sea temperatures
that killed 10 billion
snow crabs also feeds
a growing menace that
threatens marine life around
the world, algae blooms.
Fed by warm water and
nutrient pollution
from agricultural
runoff, algae blooms
are slowly killing
the seagrass beds
of Florida's Atlantic coast.
Phosphorus is a common
ingredient in fertilizers
and an essential element
for plant growth.
But the demands of industrial
agriculture have resulted
in higher levels of
phosphates in the soil,
which then washes into the sea.
Combined with warming
ocean temperatures,
the higher phosphorus level
fuels explosive red tides.
As the algae grows
out of control,
it starves underwater
plants of precious sunlight,
choking them off until
they wither and die.
- So manatees right now are
having a really hard time.
They're actually starving
to death on the east
coast of Florida.
You think of these
animals as big and round,
then you can see their
ribs, you can count them.
- Those
big round bodies come
at a high caloric cost.
Adult manatees need up to 100
pounds of sea grass per day.
- There's
no more sea grass left.
They have nothing to eat.
It's pollution, it's plastics,
it's fertilizers you
use on your grasses
and your plants that
run into the sewers
and all combining and running
off into the waterways.
- In desperate
need of a long-term solution
to restore the health of
Florida's coastal waterways,
the conversation has
turned to rewilding.
- We need to restore the
habitats of the animals in order
to make sure that they can
live in these areas again.
- In recent years,
local residents and
environmental groups
have manually vacuumed more
than 300 million pounds
of algae and debris
from the Crystal River
on Florida's Gulf Coast.
That debris is then composted
to help other plants grow.
They've also planted over
350,000 eelgrass pods
to replace the functions
of the lost seagrass.
Other coastal communities
have turned to dredging
the sea floor to remove trapped
nitrogen and phosphorus.
And so far it's working.
Without the algae
smothering nutrients,
the newly-planted eelgrass
has helped the waters
of the Crystal
River become clear
and clean once again,
attracting record high
numbers of grazing manatees.
- The state will spend
about $30 million
to support Florida's
manatees and their habitats.
- The state's
powerful agricultural lobby
has signaled their
support as well,
by adopting voluntary reductions
in harmful fertilizers
like phosphorus
that contribute directly
to algae blooms.
The modern focus on restoring
and healing entire habitats
represents a profound shift
in our thinking.
Conservation works when
humans from all walks
of life, farmers, fishermen,
nature lovers alike,
see themselves as integral
parts of a living ecosystem.
- Rewilding is really important
because we are looking
at how to restore ecological
species and functions
that have disappeared.
Well, we have to be careful
because we also
don't wanna play God.
- You need to know what
you're doing or you're putting
the animals at risk.
- We have to be so,
so careful about
unintended consequences.
If we don't take those
things into consideration,
we're doing more harm than good.
- Rewilding
isn't only about addition,
it's also about subtraction.
- Rewilding is really exciting,
but also there's lots
of things to consider.
If we look at Australia
with its amazing wildlife,
those animals are really
under threat right now
because of invasive species.
- But the species are
introduced into an area
where they have no
natural predators
and therefore go ballistic.
Then the risk is those
invasive species will drive
the native species
to extinction.
- The cane toad in Australia
was brought in to eat
the cane beetle, which was
destroying sugar cane crops.
Turns out, in Australia, cane
toads don't eat cane beetles.
Instead, they're poisonous
to things like quolls
and lizards and snakes
and other frogs.
Australia's frogs are being
decimated by cane toads.
So people thought they
were making a decision
that would help, but
instead have really,
really impacted negatively
on Australia's animals.
- So you either
have to find a way
of protecting those
native species
from the invasive species,
or you have to remove
the invasive species.
- The general public
may not really accept
the eradication of
invasive species,
but we really need to
move the invasive species
for the likelihood for survival
of those endemic species.
- So when humans move
one place or the other,
they usually bring the animals
and the plants with them.
And that happened in Australia
with European
colonization, rabbits,
cats and dogs and other
creatures travel with humans
and establish themselves.
Rabbits were very successful.
They grew and
spread very quickly.
- They don't have a natural
predator in Australia
because they didn't
evolve in Australia.
- And then the idea of
the European colonizers
was to bring in foxes
to control the rabbits.
- I think when we make
decisions that we think are
the right decisions at the time,
sometimes they have
unintended consequences.
- But the foxes found
it a lot easier to feed
on Australian mammals,
the marsupial mammals,
which were slower and
didn't have the kind
of predator response.
The consequence of that was
that the foxes started wiping
out the Australian mammals.
- The bandicoot is a
little tiny marsupial.
They're not very big.
They would sit in your
hand quite comfortably.
The problem for the
eastern barred bandicoot
is they evolved in a time
where their only predation
was aerial predation.
And so raptors, big
birds would hunt them
and their entire defense
mechanism is to sit in a bush
and not move at all.
And so that was a great defense
against aerial predation.
It's a disaster when cats
and foxes are introduced
into the habitat.
And so a strategy that had
worked well for millions
of years didn't work anymore.
- The bandicoot
population eventually dropped
so low that the only ones left
were those living in zoos.
- Like for everything
valuable in life,
it's good to have
insurance for it.
So for some of these
endangered species,
we've built populations
in zoos, aquaria,
botanic gardens,
and we manage them really well.
And that way we can use those
individuals and their genes
to reestablish wild populations.
- Insurance
populations have been used
around the world
to revive numbers of
near extinct species like
the Iberian lynx,
golden lion tamarin
and the Arabian oryx,
and now the bandicoot.
- And so we were able
to find fox-free habitats
to reintroduce them.
Fox-free habitats
are challenging.
There's a number of
ways you can do that.
One is with big fences,
but in Australia we have
animals like wombats
that go straight
underneath a fence
and create enough space for
anyone else to join them.
- And so we look to
islands as places
where we could feasibly
eradicate these invasive
or introduced predators.
- Historically,
island ecosystems
like Australia,
Madagascar, and Hawaii have
been the most vulnerable
to invasive species.
But in the age of rewilding,
islands could now be
the most practical refuge
against the invaders.
- The goal is to create
biodiversity hotspots on a range
of these islands where we
can get invasive species off
the island and restore
the wild and what it used
to look like pre the
impact of these species.
- Foxes were removed
from three local islands
that were suitable for
the tiny marsupial.
- And that's where we
really focused the release
of the bandicoots.
- The important
thing about rewilding
is that we make sure we
have the right species
in the right place at the
right time with the right kind
of management to make sure
that it really is gonna thrive.
- Remote
cameras monitored
any new fox incursions,
and dogs, which never
threatened the bandicoots,
were brought in as
their protectors.
The dogs, drawn from hunting
and herding breeds
like Great Pyrenees,
black labs and springer
spaniels can detect predators
and chase them off before
any damage is done.
- Dogs and their incredible
sensory perception
are a really critical tool
to help us in this fight
against extinction.
- Another
rewilding challenge,
the same species may be
invasive in one environment,
but endangered in another.
- In Colombia, there
has been an introduction
of hippos, associated
with Pablo Escobar.
- Cocaine kingpin
Pablo Escobar built himself
a private zoo in the heart
of the Colombian jungle.
Escobar smuggled four hippos
from an American wildlife
park into his menagerie
in Colombia, one male
and three females.
After Escobar's death in 1993,
his animals were sent
to reserves and zoos,
but the hippos escaped into
the nearby Magdalena River.
Their numbers exploded,
putting a massive strain
on the local ecosystem.
- The hippos,
they became wild,
so they escaped the
private zoo and became
a serious invader in Colombia.
- They pose a
danger to humans as well.
Hippos are the world's
deadliest land mammal,
responsible for over
500 deaths each year.
The current population
of hippos in the river
is growing exponentially.
Scientists estimate their
numbers will soon be over 1000.
Their unchecked growth
could re-engineer
the entire landscape at the
expense of native species.
- And it's the same scope
and the same organisms
that in one part of the
world are being driven
to extinction, in other part
of the world are driving
the other species to extinction.
And we have to deal with both
extremes, controlling them
in one place and saving
them in the other.
- The rewilding model
doesn't seek to define the value
of one animal over another.
It asks how a species functions
within its specific ecosystem.
- The African elephant
is losing more and more
of his habitat in Africa,
but where he is
safe and cared for,
he's just breeding too well.
You know, there are too many
elephants in too small places.
- They have an
overpopulation of elephants.
Several thousands. I was there.
I saw. They destroy
their own habitat.
And this habitat is
also lost for all
the other species living there.
The solution would be,
they can go all over
Africa as they did hundreds
of years ago, but that
is not possible anymore.
- The reality is there
are fences there to keep
the animals in and
threats like poachers out.
- So the big animals are not
really free-ranging animals,
so they cannot go out.
Then you have to manage them.
So it's a big,
big issue and a big problem
and a big discussion.
Do we have to cull
these animals?
- Sustainable hunting
presents numerous ecological
challenges and
ethical complexities.
- Sustainable hunting
is absolutely something
which works, for example,
in Europe very well.
Especially if you
think about the wolf.
The wolf is coming
back to Germany.
He's making problems already.
He's taking sheep, even horses.
And we had the discussion,
will we hunt the wolf?
And if you see where
in Europe the wolves
have a good population, it's
exactly in the countries
where they hunt wolves.
So hunting can be a
tool, a proper hunting,
a controlled hunting, a
legal hunting can be a tool
in our completely
changed environment.
- It's easy
to imagine a scenario
in which hunting can
be useful to control
an overly aggressive predator.
But what about hunting
for sport or profit?
- Trophy hunting?
It's complicated.
- Trophy hunting
means different things
to different people.
Hunting ethics are
fiercely debated,
even among hunters themselves.
- Trophy hunting is
hunting of senile
and old wild animals with the
purpose of generating money
to support conservation.
- If you shoot an old animal,
which is not any
more putting genetics
into the population,
you can say it's okay.
It's not okay probably for
the animal which got shot,
but he will die in a
year or so by himself.
And if the meat goes
to the communities,
if the money the people
pay for that goes
to conservation, the
species can thrive
through this kind of hunting.
- That is crucial that
we only can save species
and we cannot save each
individual specimen.
- We lose one animal to
save the rest of the family.
- The trick is in doing it well.
'Cause if we don't do it well,
we can have the opposite
effect and do damage.
- Because it can
be prone to abuse.
- The lions bred for
slaughter by rich tourists,
what's known as canned hunting.
- The problem is that
there are trophy huntings
which are illegal, where
they breed animals somewhere
in the backyards and
then just open a cage
and let them out and some
crazy people kill this animal.
That is something I
absolutely can't see.
I really hate that.
- So it is a bit
of a risky venture.
- Anger is growing tonight
over the American dentist
who hunted and killed a lion
in Africa that turned out
to be well known and
beloved by tourists.
- I think about Cecil the lion.
I think about that
dentist who paid
to kill these
incredible animals.
That is morally wrong, ethically
wrong, and it should stop.
- Trophy
hunting can also violate
religious practices
or cultural beliefs.
- In India, any sort of
killing of animal is a sort
of taboo in our religion.
Like all the animals
have got the same right
to live like human being.
- From an intellectual
standpoint,
I certainly can understand
that it's a very complex issue,
but I still think it's wrong.
Quite frankly we can
move that animal.
We can fundraise by
bringing that animal
into an environment
where someone can meet it
for the first time.
Meeting an elephant
for the first time,
that's an opportunity
to raise funds to ensure
that not only that one
elephant has a great life,
but an entire herd in
a natural environment.
- Is it
as simple as that?
Can humans just
move animals around?
- Well, we did it with
the beavers in Denmark.
Beavers had disappeared
from Danish nature
many years ago,
and they are really
good landscape engineers
because they cut down the
trees, they make dams,
and so they actually
raise water levels,
so they're really good
for shaping new habitats.
Since they wouldn't be
able to come by themselves
from Germany, we took some
animals from a wild population
in Germany, moved them
to a place in Denmark,
released them and
it works very well.
- Other countries
are now restoring beavers
to rewild habitats and
seeing profound improvements
to ecosystem health.
- There has been
translocation of key species,
in particular, giraffes.
Giraffes have been
translocated from one park
to another and they're
doing very, very well.
- Species translocation
has proven effective,
but also brings steep financial
and logistical hurdles,
with risks to both
humans and animals,
such as the spread of diseases.
And just because a
translocated animal
is the same species
doesn't guarantee
a healthy, long-term
population rebound,
the ultimate objective.
Self-sustaining population
growth is the goal of this
daring and unconventional
new rewilding project,
one that aims to return
an iconic species.
India has a long
and storied history
with the Asiatic cheetah.
The maharajas prized
cheetahs for their speed,
and even domesticated them
as hunting companions.
But the British colonialists
hunted the cheetah
to be stuffed for trophies.
Modern India's
population boom consumed
the cheetah's
traditional habitat.
- The last cheetah
was shot in 1948.
- That
deep-rooted connection
to the Asiatic cheetah
has made the cats'
reintroduction
a matter of national pride.
- There are a lot
of discussionS going
on a government level.
We should bring back
cheetahs to India.
- By reintroducing them in
this grassland ecosystem,
we are going to rectify
that wrong which was done.
- But reintroducing
the Asiatic cheetah
was no simple matter as
their numbers had dipped
to near zero.
- When we talk of locally
extinct means it became extinct
in India. They are
still there in Iran.
- For decades,
India negotiated with Iran,
home to the last extent
Asiatic cheetahs on Earth,
but none were available
to relocate to India.
- Actually the population in
Iran is not itself very good.
- There are just few tens
of individuals there.
- So this was the only option.
We had to get the
animals from Africa.
- Scientists
turned to sub-Saharan Africa.
- But it's technically
not a reintroduction.
It's what we call an
ecological replacement.
And that's a replacement
because we're not putting
the exact same population,
same subspecies into here,
but bringing one from Africa.
- These two
subspecies diverged
from each other around
70,000 years ago.
- It might have adaptations
to the local ecosystem
that are not adequate
for the new ecosystem.
So although they're
the same species,
they might be
different ecologically.
- If you put an animal
into an environment
where it's not supposed to be,
it's not likely that that
animal itself will survive.
It doesn't know how to eat,
it doesn't know how
to avoid predators.
And in a lot of places it's
just about saving the species.
But then we also have to
think about subspecies.
- So although a species
might not go extinct
as a species, as
populations disappear
and the range shrinks, we
start losing local adaptations
to different ecosystem
types, different climates.
- The African
cheetah is clearly
a non-native exotic
species to India.
But what's not clear is
whether its introduction will
have a positive or negative
effect on the local ecosystem.
- I like to see nature
as close as possible
to its original state.
And in that sense,
I feel that there
are more benefits
than disadvantages because
you're bringing us something
that is pretty close, I agree
that we could be even closer,
but it's hard to be able to
make that happen in reality.
- I personally believe
that if we can get those
animals back out functioning
in the ecosystem and not
having big, unintended
consequences, then great.
- Out of the 20 cheetahs
that were bought to India
from Namibia and South
Africa, only 14 are left.
- Yes, it sounds alarming,
but this is the norm for
wild cheetah reintroduction.
- So it's an experiment,
the process is on-going,
it has happened and it'll be
a great opportunity to see
if they succeed, and if
they don't, learn from it
and try to do it
better the next time.
- So one of the things
that really worries us
is this invisible
extinction that's going
on where populations
are just disappearing
and it's not noticed,
especially in species
that are more numerous
and more widespread.
If you look at giraffes,
the species itself overall
is probably around 125,000
to 150,000 giraffes in Africa,
which is quite a large number.
They're declining and sort
of potentially at risk
of extinction, but
not imminently.
But if you start to look at some
of those different types,
then you get to things
like Rothschild's giraffe
where there's less than 2000.
So we now have a population
of Rothschild's giraffes
that we breed.
So we're preserving
the genetic stock
of that particular population,
that particular type of giraffe.
- Is a giraffe a
giraffe a giraffe?
Or are there different
genetics that we need
to make sure we're
protecting as well?
And those are hard
decisions to make.
Some people think as long
as we don't lose
giraffes entirely,
then we can just
move giraffes around.
Whereas others are really
fiercely protective
of subspecies and
wanna make sure
we're conserving the genetics.
And I think it really
comes down to making sure
we use all of the
tools in our toolbox,
making sure that the genetic
scientists are protecting
the genetic
diversity of giraffes,
and working with the field
practitioners and the rangers
to understand the
implications on the ground.
- Rewilding is
incredibly hard to do.
- It is incredibly
difficult to do
that with mammals, especially
with large mammals.
We all wish we could have
more elephants and tigers
and rhinos in our forests, but
it is really hard to achieve.
What is quite possible to do
is rewilding smaller species
such as birds or reptiles,
turtles in particular.
- We can potentially, with
the expertise of good zoos,
step in and do some
captive breeding or some
wild introductions
into certain areas
to help repopulate species.
- Restoring
the Lear's macaw
to the Brazilian desert involved
a different challenge,
retraining human-bred animals
in the skills and instincts
necessary to thrive in the wild.
Lear's macaw evolved
to the harsh conditions
of a specific landscape,
the dry shrublands
and sandstone canyons
of northeastern Brazil.
Habitat loss, poaching and
the illegal pet trade led them
to near extinction in the '80s.
Two pairs of Lear's
macaws were recovered
from the black market
pet trade and brought
to Loro Parque in
Tenerife, Spain.
- So we got two couples,
four individuals to Loro
Parque and within six months
we had the first fledge,
that means the first chick
raised from these Lear macaws.
Since then, we
reproduced 41 chicks.
- Zoos and aquariums have
become the emergency room
or the intensive care unit
for many, many species,
breeding endangered species
for reintroduction of the wild.
- But breeding
macaws was only the first step.
Their goal was to return the
birds to their natural habitat.
These birds had spent their
entire lives in human care.
They had no idea how
to survive in the wild.
So it was up to the
biologists at Loro Parque
to teach the birds
how to be wild again.
- When you have a bird
that's born in managed care,
we need to teach them fear.
- Once we
introduce them into the aviary
for the release, but we use
tape recording to train them
to be aware of the danger.
It's very different
what they eat and drink
in nature because in
human care we offer them,
for example, water,
which we will withdraw
throughout the training.
The difficulty of
hydration in the Caatinga
where it never rains
is that these birds,
they actually have to find
the liquid palm tree to eat
their coconuts, which are
very small, very hard,
and there's just one
drop of water in.
So they have to find lots
of these little coconuts
to get their hydration.
- 19 birds were
reintroduced from Loro Parque
back to their homeland.
- And now they're successfully
flying in the Caatinga again
and most importantly
they've already reproduced.
- The threat of
ecosystem collapse is global,
but the future of
conservation is local.
- I've done community
conservation in Borneo,
and what I've seen is if a
community's happy and healthy,
if they can feed themselves
and if they can send
their children to school,
they will be there to
fight for the forest.
And here's what's so important.
If there isn't somebody
there watching over habitat,
it could easily be gone.
- Rewilding
emphasizes the connections
between natural ecosystems
and human communities,
especially indigenous
groups whose contributions
and knowledge have
long been overlooked.
But in recent years,
an encouraging
statistic has emerged.
Environmental degradation
has been less severe
or even avoided entirely
in areas inhabited
by native peoples.
Surprisingly, one quarter of
the Earth's land is managed
by indigenous and
local communities.
Their deep-rooted connections
to ancestral lands
have protected wildlife
for future generations.
Designating land
as a national park
or nature reserve means nothing
without proper oversight.
Illegal logging and
mining operations
have annihilated protected
areas from Brazil
to Borneo, stripping
forests bare
and destroying
entire ecosystems.
- What was shocking my first
time to Borneo is the number
of logs that were coming
out of the national park
on a daily basis.
They're going out
on small barges
literally 24 hours a day,
week upon week upon week.
- The
uneven success rate
of wildlife reserves suggests
that government-protected
land still needs more local
and tribal involvement.
But historically,
conservation work
has excluded native communities.
Many of the world's iconic
protected areas like Yosemite
in the US were created
by the cruel displacement
of native people.
But as indigenous groups
assert a more active role
in managing the
resources and wildlife
of their traditional lands,
they face increasing
resistance and danger.
- Illegal
gold miners exploiting
and destroying the
rivers and land,
intimidating and
firing at Yanomami.
- Unfortunately, the
work in conservation
has become dangerous.
- The desperate search for
an indigenous rights advocate
and renowned journalist in
a remote area of the Amazon
in Brazil has apparently
come to a grim conclusion.
- Brazilian authorities
have recovered the bodies
of British journalists,
Dom Phillips
and his expert
guide, Bruno Pereira.
- Recent figures of the number
of environmental defenders
killed is especially serious
in Latin America, and Brazil,
Colombia, and Mexico are
well known for being
at the top of the list.
It is mainly people
who are challenging large
interests like mining
and logging typically
are the ones
that have the biggest problems.
It's a very serious issue.
We have to make sure
that citizens around
the world become aware and
start doing something about it.
- Rewilding
is a path to peace,
for a fragile planet
at war with itself,
a peace that protects the future
of Earth's most
misunderstood pollinators.
- There are 1,400
species of bats,
and most of them are
insect-feeding bats.
They are pollinators for
hundreds of species of plants.
They are doing amazing
services for us humans.
But what people know,
it's vampire bats,
which is only three species.
People only can think
about Dracula, blood,
even Batman, you know?
Wanted people to
be afraid of him.
- I'm Batman.
- Despite the
crucial role bats play
in their ecosystem, these
furry flying mammals
are often treated as if
they were invasive pests.
- In caves where
there are big groups
of bats living there,
people will go and
put fire on the cave.
That's why education
is so important,
because if you tell people
that that bat is feeding
on mosquitoes that
you don't like,
on mosquitoes that can
transmit diseases,
if people knew that,
I'm pretty sure they
wouldn't attack them.
- It's the whole picture.
It's the environment,
it's the habitat
and how they all
interplay with one another
that we're looking at.
And it's gonna take all of
us to figure out what to do
to continue to live
together in harmony.
- There is hope. I
always have hope.
- What gives me hope
is partnerships.
- We also collaborate
with each other,
so that giving us a
hope not just right now,
but also for the future.
- And that is exactly
what we need to tell.
We need to tell stories of hope.
- There is hope,
and I think that's
something we forget
or we don't see often because
there are so many stories
of doom and gloom.
But there is a lot
of hope and a lot
of success stories out there.
- We're sharing
scientists' stories.
We're sharing their story
of animals on the brink
of extinction and how
we're bringing them back,
how we're rewilding,
how we're seeing natural
habitats come back to life.
That's exciting. We have
more stories to tell.
- The work isn't done. We
are just getting started.
- In Victoria, we have
1,995 endangered species.
And it sounds like
an enormous number,
until you remember just how
many of us there are as humans.
What if we each picked
one species to conserve?
Suddenly that number's
not daunting at all.
Suddenly we'll have teams of
people working to save each
and every species.
And all we have to
do is care about one.
We don't all have to
care about all of them.
- We have to live in
a sustainable way.
That means our living
can't harm other species.
- We have to take care
of them like we take care
of our children.
- So let's get our force
together, get our momentum,
and make a change,
a valid change in our community
to make sure that there is
a future for wildlife
in wild places.
- And rewilding is possible.
There are so many examples
where we are bringing
species back from the brink
of extinction and they're
starting to thrive again
in their wild environments.
As long as we ask
the right questions
with the right people in the
room, we can save species,
we can save ecosystems.
We just need to be working
together and doing more of it.
- Everything
can be recuperated.
- We must act now. The
Earth is in crisis.
- We're facing a
sixth mass extinction event,
with up to a quarter of
all species on the planet
threatened with extinction.
- What is the
cost of indifference?
- We've identified
around 40,000
threatened species.
- Where is
our point of no return?
- Thirst for consumption-
- Deforestation and overfishing.
- Fossil fuel addiction.
- The growing
threat to our natural world.
- When are
self-inflicted wounds
too deep to heal?
- We cut down
old growth forests.
We pollute our water.
- Numerous
vulnerable species
targeted by poachers.
- We have done so
much harm to nature.
If nature is not healthy,
we won't be surviving this.
- If Earth is our home,
how many windows can we smash?
How many bricks can we remove?
- Populations are dwindling-
- How much can
we crack the foundation
before it all comes
crumbling down?
- The house is on fire.
- We really only have about
a decade to turn things around.
- It's time to take action.
- Rising global temperatures-
- Drought, storms, and floods.
- It's the life
support system of people
and the whole planet.
- Ocean dead zone.
- Things are bad and
it's getting worse.
- Habitats vanished.
- We waited until
it was too late.
- To eventual human extinction.
- Extinction.
- Extinction.
- 1 million species.
- 1 million species.
- And we are losing 1 million
species within the next year.
- And the
biggest question of all,
can we still win this war
when so much has
already been lost?
An international army of
wildlife protectors says yes.
- Chief Veterinary Officer
and animal ethicist.
- I'm the animal
and plant director-
- Director of science-
- Global director
of Humane Conservation.
- President
and chief executive officer.
- Honorary Professor
of the university.
- PhD.
- PhD.
- Neuro-
- Physiology.
- The world's
leading animal experts,
veterinarians and
scientists are fighting
to save our planet,
standing up to misinformation.
- Our fossil fuel
use has protected us.
It's taken an unsafe
climate and made it safe.
- And
choosing facts...
- The world's hottest
day on record...
- Over fear.
Solutions over slogans.
Science over special interests.
- We're in a war and
most people don't even know
this war even exists.
- This is a lifetime battle,
a multi-generational battle.
No mistake, we're fighting a war
to keep these animals alive.
- When you think
of animals in the wild,
it's a term we all use
all the time, right?
But there's very
little wild left.
- What
does wild truly mean?
When every corner of the
globe is connected and mapped
and touched by human hands?
Is wild a pure state of nature,
self-generating and
beyond human control?
Every acre of wild
lands requires expertise
and stewardship, from
a mix of government,
indigenous and
private management.
- There's no place
on Earth which is not
under human control.
We control the whole globe,
so there's nothing
that is not artificial
all over the world.
- Farms, fishing, mining
and logging
penetrate ever deeper
into tropical rainforests
and national parks
from Southeast Asia to
South America and Africa.
- One of my worst experiences
was a visit on Madagascar
and then I was almost crying
when I saw what is gone.
Now we're standing in
a forest without trees
and no chance for
animals to survive.
- Not even
Antarctica can escape our grasp.
Considered the last true
wilderness on Earth,
over two thirds of
the South Pole's
land mass is now affected
by human activity.
- And that's the reality.
There is no nature or wild left.
- We have 8 billion people
living here on the planet.
We take so much space
and there's only
a little bit space left.
- The human being
is the only organism
on the Earth today that
can make a difference.
They either can screw
it up or fix it.
The animals can't do that.
- A bold new
approach to conservation science
asks us to dream
bigger, and wilder.
Instead of just
preventing the extinctions
of our favorite animals,
what if we could rebuild
the patterns and connections
that support entire ecosystems?
- Rewilding is about bringing
back a natural habitat
to its original form.
- I think rewilding in
a more general sense
is about leaving things messier,
leaving nature to regenerate.
- Like shifting
pieces of a living puzzle,
the addition or subtraction
of one new piece can impact
the fates of so many others.
- Rewilding is a relatively
new concept where we try
to restore nature
and reintroduce the
natural processes
that got lost many years ago,
giving space for the
biodiversity that
we need to get back.
- Rewilding
projects have taken root
on every continent,
in every biome.
Restoring of the
lush kelp forests
of the California coast,
rebuilding the intricate webs
of life in the rainforests
of Bolivia, renewing the
human-wildlife connection
across the vast and
varied climates of Africa.
In this quest for successful
biodiversity models,
no nation has engineered a
more remarkable turnaround
than Rwanda, a country
that rebuilt its ecosystems
and its economy from
the ashes of tragedy.
For most of the 20th century,
Rwanda was a
biodiversity hotspot,
but in 1994, Rwanda
erupted in violence.
- In 100 days, 800,000
people were killed.
- With basic survival at stake,
it's easy to understand
why wildlife conservation
was a low priority.
The Rwandan government
was in dire need of land
to shelter hundreds of
thousands of displaced people.
Their only option
was to open the doors
of the country's largest
wildlife preserve,
Akagera National Park, shrinking
the park's protected area
to one third of
its original size.
New conflicts exploded,
this time between
humans and animals.
Desperate Rwandans
poached bush meat to feed
their starving families.
Rhino horns were an easy
source of illegal revenue,
one that caused the extinction
of the region's entire
rhino population.
Lions died off, poisoned
by angry cattle herders
in retaliation for killing
the livestock so crucial
to their survival.
The conflict was clear.
The locals needed land
and food security,
while the nation needed to
revive its ecotourism economy.
But Rwanda was quickly losing
its most precious resource,
the animals themselves.
- Rwanda has moved forward
since those dark days,
both politically
and economically.
- The new government
recognized the importance
of restoring wildlife to
rebuilding the Rwandan economy.
Akagera had the potential
to be the economic engine
of the entire Rwandan nation,
a global attraction on par
with the iconic parks like
Kruger in South Africa.
But the benefits had
to outweigh the costs
for the people most
directly affected.
- The public opinion
is critically important
for wildlife conservation.
- You cannot protect and
save species against people.
You have to do it together
with the people living there.
- We have to show them
that Akagera National Park
is their assets.
- And valuable
assets need protection.
The eastern edge of the park
had an effective natural
boundary, the Kagera River,
but the western side needed
additional safeguarding.
- Rewilded areas are
fenced because most
of these areas
we're talking about,
they're surrounded by
farmland and we don't want
the animals we reintroduce
to go out on the field
because then they'll
destroy the crops,
thereby the income
of the farmer.
- The idea of
fencing the animals
was to keep them
away from people.
- The fence really,
really help us to manage
a human-wild conflict.
- The next
step, share the benefits
of a healthy Akagera directly
with the locals
living alongside.
- It's all about survival.
We cannot achieve conservation
when the communities are hungry.
- There is no way that
we can save wildlife
if we do not also
have happy communities
and healthy communities
in these ecosystems.
- As long as the
communities don't feel
the economic incentive derived
from wildlife areas,
protected areas,
they'll not value them.
- All the Rwanda
parks contribute 10%
of the tourist income.
They put that in a fund
and with that money
we just ask the community
or the local authority
what they need for the
community around the park.
- The park revenues
also support local jobs,
everything from
construction to beekeeping.
- Rwanda is a grand
success and it's a success
because they brought together
multiple different groups
to create an ecosystem,
an ecosystem that
addresses food security,
an ecosystem that addresses
the local economic needs.
- Those successes paved
the way for the reintroduction
of iconic megafauna,
the so-called big
five African mammals,
attracting legions of
international visitors
and crucial tourism revenues.
Lions were brought back first.
Since genetic diversity
in a small population
is so important, the
translocated lions were drawn
from several different regions.
Each individual
lion in South Africa
was carefully
studied and selected
by population biologists
based on genetics
and their potential to
breed and thrive in Rwanda.
- We can't have
inbreeding of animals.
- The more genetic
diversity a population has,
the more adaptable
it is to any kind
of potential changes
which may come along.
- The communities
that once poisoned the lions
now celebrated their return.
- If there's a benefit
from wildlife, sustainable
benefit, there'll be a future.
- These misfit
lions bonded together
and formed a pride.
The initial group of 12
lions bred and thrived.
The electric fencing kept lions
from hunting
domesticated cattle,
while keeping the lions'
natural prey within reach.
- Well, the carnivore
is a very important part
of the ecosystem.
They take care of a lot
of the surplus of animals
that we would otherwise
have to take out
of the population
in order to keep
the population size adapted
to the available habitat,
so in order not to
graze everything down.
- Most recently,
Akagera reintroduced
the iconic black rhino.
Akagera's wildlife experts
teamed up with an alliance
of European zoos.
- That breeding
population that we've got
within European zoos can now
act as founders to go back
to helping in some
of those countries.
- Jasiri is one
of several black rhinos
now living in Rwanda.
Her long journey home
started in a small zoo
in the Czech Republic.
Sickly and underweight
baby rhinos are not
the typical candidates to
restore native populations.
Her birth weight was only half
that of a normal
black rhino calf.
Even worse, she was too
small and weak to latch
onto her mother for the milk
that would keep her alive.
Zoo veterinarians
fed the baby rhino
from a bottle around the clock.
After 10 days, Jasiri
was finally able to nurse
on her own, without any
need for human assistance.
She grew into a strong
and healthy calf
and was soon chosen to
help restore her species
in its native land.
- A group of five black rhinos
were all pulled together
from different European zoos.
And now Jasiri is one
of those five rhinos
that's actually gone
to Rwanda to help save
the black rhino in
Akagera National Park.
- The achievements
at Akagera created a blueprint
for successful conservation
work throughout Rwanda.
Volcanoes National Park
is Africa's first
national protected area,
best known as the research site
of the well-known American
primatologist, Dian Fossey.
It's also the home of Rwanda's
iconic mountain gorillas,
who share 98.2% of human DNA.
These gentle giants were
decimated by poachers
throughout the 1970s.
By the early 1980s,
scientists estimated only
220 remaining in the wild.
Park rangers rarely
enforced anti-poaching laws.
Corruption and
bribery were rampant.
Baby gorillas were cruelly
stolen from their mothers
and sold to the highest bidder,
devastating gorilla families
like this one, the Agashyas.
The Agashya family
counts 36 gorillas spanning
multiple generations.
Like human families, the
Agashyas show a wide range
of personalities and emotions.
Gorilla mothers experience
pregnancy and parenthood
much like humans.
Gestation takes nine
months and mothers dote
on their newborns with
close care and affection
for the first several
years of life.
The children laugh and play
under the parents'
watchful eyes.
Gorillas even mourn their dead,
crying at the loss
of a loved one.
The decades following
the civil war
have seen remarkable recovery
for gorilla families
like the Agashya,
as a new of African
conservationists fights to save
the mountain gorilla
from extinction,
a profound shift for a
culture where poaching
was deeply entrenched.
- The previous generations
was killing and harmed
the animals, but now
we are protecting
and conserving these gorillas.
- If they don't poach,
but protect as a ranger,
it's so good to have them
on board because they
are the experts.
They know the places
the best, you know.
They know where the animals
are, how they behave,
where to find them.
- Compared to
poaching or illegal herding
on parkland, ecotourism jobs
could offer a better payday
and a better life.
- Better to become
a conservationist rather
than being a poacher,
because if you take care
of natural resources,
everybody gets benefits.
- The gorilla
numbers increased
in just a few short years.
By 1989, tourism
had quickly become
Rwanda's largest single source
of badly needed foreign dollars.
The Rwandan economy was
now permanently linked
to the gorilla's survival.
In 2015, the national
governments of Rwanda,
Uganda and the Democratic
Republic of Congo signed
a treaty to formally collaborate
on conservation, tourism,
land management,
law enforcement,
and community conservation.
- We are having
1060 mountain gorillas.
- It's a
point of national pride
that the gorillas have
been reclassified out
of the critically endangered
level on the IUCN Red List.
- The IUCN Red List is like
the currency of conservation.
It tells us how good
or how bad it's going
for different species.
- Now that
locals have a stake
in the gorilla's protection,
they take a more active
role in reporting
poaching and other illegal
activity in the park.
As the gorilla numbers have
thrived, so too has ecotourism.
Curious nature lovers from
all over the world travel
to Rwanda for the
mountain gorilla trek.
Tourists are allowed to come
close to the mountain gorillas.
Not close enough to spread
disease or interfere
with the animals'
natural behaviors,
but enough to experience
how gorillas live.
The biggest challenge
is a familiar one,
too many animals and
humans in need of land.
- The gorilla population grow,
but the gorilla habitat
remain the same.
That's why we need to
work on park expansion.
- The park expansion
will give the gorillas
the space they need
to grow and thrive,
while improving the lives
of local communities
by sharing material
benefits from ecotourism,
paid for entirely by
families like the Agashya.
The park will become larger
by approximately 23%.
A new buffer zone separating
the expanded parkland
from human areas aims to
reduce human-wildlife conflict
and restore more of the
ecosystem's natural processes.
The Rwandan government estimates
the park expansion will
result in a 20% increase
in mountain gorilla
ecotourism revenues.
Those revenues will be shared
with the local communities
in concrete, tangible ways.
Several thousand homes will
be moved and resettled,
so the land can be rewilded
into a self-sustaining
gorilla habitat.
These households, often
lacking electricity
and running water, will be
compensated with new homes
in a modern housing development,
plus a land grant for
income-generating activities
like agriculture,
a nursery school, a health
clinic, markets, roads,
community banks, expanded
internet services,
modern electrical and water
supply infrastructure,
all paid for by mountain
gorilla ecotourism revenues.
The park expansion will
put $70 million back
into local communities.
The incredible resilience
of the Rwandan people
and their forward-
thinking protection
of precious ecological
treasures is an inspiring lesson
for the rest of the world.
The health and fortune
of human communities
and their surrounding wildlife
are deeply connected now
and into the future.
- Rewilding is the ability
to bring our species back
into their native ranges,
and that's happening
all around the world.
- The bottom line is
that habitat is the key
to preventing species from
going extinct, pristine habitat.
- Often what we leave
behind is not the best part
of the habitat.
We leave behind
swamps and mountains.
We take all the fertile
ground and then we wonder
where the animals that used
to live in that area are gone.
And so it is really important
that we protect as much
of the planet that
we can that's left,
and we actively
start moving some
of the agricultural land,
some of the park land,
all the land that we live
on, how do we make it wilder?
How do we introduce more species
and more diversity
back into these areas?
- When we do rewilding, we
need to find the balance
between losing control
and taking a little bit
of control that is needed
in order to make
sure that the animals
have a proper welfare.
- And so it's a continuum.
You have what is wild over here,
which is shrinking daily, up
to completely managed care.
- As true
wilderness disappears,
semi-managed habitats
play a crucial role
in the modern spectrum
of wildlife conservation.
- The semi-managed
habitat is one
where we reintroduce
animals into the wild,
but we still have some
kind of ongoing management
of that population
to help protect them.
- One
rewilding method involves
transforming non-productive
farmland into natural reserves,
like this 600 hectare
farm in Bolivia purchased
by Loro Parque.
- We bought a farm and we
turned it into a habitat
which is a protected area.
- We maintain inside
puma, jaguar, capybaras.
It's amazing how many
monkeys are inside.
- We have the anteaters.
We have caiman.
We have lots of other birds
and fishes because there
are no humans predating them.
We don't allow people
to step in or to walk
through and it's
just for animals.
- And by moving away
from this species-
level conservation
towards ecosystem-
level conservation,
we can have cascading
conservation effects,
which ultimately impact hundreds
if not thousands of species.
- The new reserve
has thrived as a fortress
for a wide range of animals,
including one of the world's
rarest and most beloved birds.
- Blue-throated macaw
in Bolivia is very rare.
less than 400 individuals
are counted in nature.
- Bolivia has
experienced a rapid loss of
forest over the past decades,
primarily due to
industrial agriculture.
The tropical savannas of Bolivia
are the only natural habitat
for the blue-throated macaw.
The population of
the blue-throated
macaw has plummeted
in the 1970s and '80s
when they were captured
by the thousands and
sold as exotic pets.
Live exports were
banned in 1984,
but a thriving illegal
trade decimated the birds
to the point of
extinction in the wild.
Or so we thought.
In 1992, 50 individuals
were found in one pocket
of Bolivian forest.
But decades of rampant logging,
burning and grazing
had severely reduced
the birds' ideal habitat and
their primary food source.
The nuts and fruits of
the motacu palm nourish
a wide range of animals.
It's also the only tree
where the blue-throated
macaw will nest,
in particular old or dead trees
with hollowed-out cavities
high in the trunks
to protect them from predators.
- One of the problem of
the blue-throated macaw
is that they can't find
opportunities to breed.
- A crisis emerged,
suitable nesting trees
were in short supply.
The scientists
overseeing the habitat
had planted new motacu palms
to replace the trees
lost to deforestation.
But the trunks of these
new trees didn't yet
have the hollow cavities
favored by the macaws
as nesting sites.
Manmade problems required
manmade solutions.
- To help the species to
establish in the reserve
we put up nest boxes,
so we offer them possibilities
for nesting and sleeping
in a protective area.
- The boxes
allowed biologists to observe
the macaws' nesting behavior
up close and improve
the design to maximize
breeding success.
One feature of a
semi-managed habitat
is greater accessibility
for human caretakers.
That proximity
allowed scientists
to quickly address problems
that might otherwise
go unnoticed.
The entrances were made smaller,
to keep out potential predators.
The interiors were expanded
to offer more space
for the fledgling chicks.
Over 100 chicks
have been born from nest boxes
since their introduction.
With fewer than 500
individuals in the wild,
blue-throated macaw is
still critically endangered.
- When we restore
nature and habitat,
we often expect that the
species will rebound by itself.
That's not always true.
Some species are such
big trouble that we need
to give them intensive care.
- Thanks to the
imagination and dedication
of local wildlife experts,
the region is now a thriving
habitat in the fight
to restore the
blue-throated macaw.
- And I'm quite
proud about this,
but it has to be much more.
- Loro Parque's success
in rewilding farmland
has established a valuable
model for other zoos
to emulate an ecosystem-
based approach
to saving vulnerable animals
on the brink of extinction,
from the Dublin Zoo's work
rewilding Irish peatlands,
and restoring red panda
habitat in the forests of Nepal
to Seattle's Woodland
Park Zoo funding
a marine reserve sheltering half
of Peru's Humboldt
Penguins whose populations
are on the brink.
- I don't think that the
decision is to intervene all
over the world, at least not
actively managing ecosystems.
But certainly our
intervention has to be lower
the pressure in many parts,
so for these
ecosystems to recover.
- If forests
are the planet's lungs,
oceans are its lifeblood.
No other biome
has such an impact
on Earth's weather,
temperature, or food supply.
Our planet supports
a broad spectrum
of oceanic environments:
deep ocean,
coral reefs, mangrove swamps.
One of the planet's
most biodiverse
and productive marine
ecosystems is the kelp forest
of the Pacific coast
of North America.
Like Earth's
terrestrial forests,
kelp anchors a vast and
intricate web of life.
Kelp grows in shallow water,
where it can drink in the
sunlight, forming thick beds,
providing food and shelter for
over 1,000 different species.
- Everything from the sea
otters that we know and adore,
all the way down to the
sea urchins and the abalone
that they depend on to eat.
There are salmon, rock
fishes, sea stars,
sponges, bryozoans.
So many different species
depend on kelp forests
to provide them the habitat
they need to survive.
- So it's a cascading effect,
and all of them are important.
- Kelp forests help mediate
against ocean acidification
because it helps regulate
the balance of CO2 in the ocean.
So they're taking
carbon dioxide in
and they're putting
oxygen back out.
- The CO2 that is coming
from the atmosphere
that we are releasing, this
CO2 is passing to the ocean,
and when it passes to the
ocean, it becomes acid.
- Like human
bones made weak and fragile
by osteoporosis, the
calcium-based shells
of crucial species are
dissolving before our very eyes.
The loss of filter
feeders like oysters harms
the entire ecosystems.
Their ability to
filter excess nitrogen,
bacteria and sediment is
crucial to healthy oceans.
Reduction efforts haven't
kept pace with the rapid rate
of ocean acidification.
- Are we gonna wait until
the ocean is so acidic
there's gonna be
no life left in it?
- The health of
the kelp forest is shaped
by this ecosystem engineer.
- Sea otters are what
keep the other species
in that ecosystem in check,
so that the kelp
forests themselves can
survive and thrive.
- Sea otters feed
on sea urchins and the
sea urchins feed on kelp.
So once the sea
otters are removed,
the urchins explode
in abundance,
they eat the kelp and
prevent it regeneration,
so the whole forest collapses.
And with the loss of the forest,
all the species associated
to it go as well.
- Kelp forests,
they can't survive and thrive
without healthy sea
otter populations.
- These cascades of
extinction, once a species
that is keystone in the
ecosystem, disappears,
make others go away without
us even knowing about.
- Thousands
of otters now swim
along the Pacific coast,
but hardly a full recovery
from their peak population.
Before the dawn of
commercial hunting,
an estimated 300,000
otters ranged the coasts
from Baja California
to the northern islands
of Alaska, Russia and Japan.
Fur traders exploring
the Pacific coast
soon discovered what
was already known
to the local indigenous tribes
like the Tongva and Chumash.
The fur of the sea otter
is thick, plush and warm,
perfect for a
luxurious winter coat.
Insatiable demand for otter
pelts led to a century
and a half of
ruthless over hunting,
until those 300,000
otters were nearly gone.
Trade in otter fur was
banned worldwide in 1911,
but by then the damage was done.
The once abundant otter
populations of the west coast
had now vanished from Baja
California to Washington state.
until 1938, when several
dozen otters were found
in the waters off Big Sur
in central California.
This tiny remnant population
of southern otters
had somehow survived.
All sea otters now swimming
off the coast of California
are descendants of this one
hardy group of survivors.
- One rewilding success for
us in the state of Washington
is the reintroduction
of sea otters
to the Washington coastline.
- In 1969, state
wildlife agencies moved a group
of otters from Alaska
to the Washington coast.
Their goal, repopulate
native otter ranges
in the Pacific Northwest.
- They've come back.
We have almost 3,000 animals
in the State of Washington,
and as a result,
we have thriving kelp forest
ecosystems on our coast.
- And bringing
sea otters back,
they start feeding on the
urchins, kelp regenerate,
and then other species
that live around
the whole ecosystem
recover as well.
- On North
America's other coastline,
a different marine ecosystem
faces parallel challenges.
Similar to kelp's role
on the Pacific coast,
sea grass is a
crucial building block
for its marine ecosystem.
It absorbs twice as
much carbon per acre
as the tropical rainforest.
It cycles nutrients from
the soil to the water,
while filtering out pollutants
and sediment to help keep
the water quality clean,
clear and healthy.
Seagrasses also form the basis
of an intricate food web,
nourishing everything from
microalgae and crustaceans
to fish and birds, to
sea turtles and manatees.
- Seagrasses all around the
world, as we're learning,
are also providing
this ecosystem service
of mediating against
ocean acidification.
But climate change
is wreaking havoc
on these ecosystems
'cause they're really
sensitive to temperature.
And so as the sea
water is warming up,
we're losing our seagrass beds.
- The cascading effects
of global warming are like
a Jenga game where all
the pieces fit just
perfectly together
and you remove one and the
whole thing falls apart.
That's impacting our manatees.
- Weighing
in at 2000 pounds,
manatees have a gentle
disposition and playful nature
that has delighted
humans for generations.
At the same time,
humans are the manatees'
only real predator.
Coastal habitat loss,
industrial agriculture
and boat collisions form
the most immediate threats
to the manatees' future.
As recently as the 1960s,
manatee populations in
Florida dipped below 1000.
Decades of habitat restoration,
new boating regulations
and awareness campaigns
have pushed their numbers
to an unstable 7,500.
But global air and sea
temperatures are soaring,
with heat records
broken each year.
- It's been a week of record
breaking heat around the world.
- Excess
heat in the atmosphere
is absorbed by the ocean.
Marine ecosystems are
already suffering.
- Snow crabbing
season in Alaska's Bering Sea
is canceled for the
second year in a row
after billions of
crabs disappeared
over the last couple of years.
- All signs point to
warming ocean waters.
- It was evidently
a population collapse
and that 10 billion snow
crabs had disappeared.
- The
warmer sea temperatures
that killed 10 billion
snow crabs also feeds
a growing menace that
threatens marine life around
the world, algae blooms.
Fed by warm water and
nutrient pollution
from agricultural
runoff, algae blooms
are slowly killing
the seagrass beds
of Florida's Atlantic coast.
Phosphorus is a common
ingredient in fertilizers
and an essential element
for plant growth.
But the demands of industrial
agriculture have resulted
in higher levels of
phosphates in the soil,
which then washes into the sea.
Combined with warming
ocean temperatures,
the higher phosphorus level
fuels explosive red tides.
As the algae grows
out of control,
it starves underwater
plants of precious sunlight,
choking them off until
they wither and die.
- So manatees right now are
having a really hard time.
They're actually starving
to death on the east
coast of Florida.
You think of these
animals as big and round,
then you can see their
ribs, you can count them.
- Those
big round bodies come
at a high caloric cost.
Adult manatees need up to 100
pounds of sea grass per day.
- There's
no more sea grass left.
They have nothing to eat.
It's pollution, it's plastics,
it's fertilizers you
use on your grasses
and your plants that
run into the sewers
and all combining and running
off into the waterways.
- In desperate
need of a long-term solution
to restore the health of
Florida's coastal waterways,
the conversation has
turned to rewilding.
- We need to restore the
habitats of the animals in order
to make sure that they can
live in these areas again.
- In recent years,
local residents and
environmental groups
have manually vacuumed more
than 300 million pounds
of algae and debris
from the Crystal River
on Florida's Gulf Coast.
That debris is then composted
to help other plants grow.
They've also planted over
350,000 eelgrass pods
to replace the functions
of the lost seagrass.
Other coastal communities
have turned to dredging
the sea floor to remove trapped
nitrogen and phosphorus.
And so far it's working.
Without the algae
smothering nutrients,
the newly-planted eelgrass
has helped the waters
of the Crystal
River become clear
and clean once again,
attracting record high
numbers of grazing manatees.
- The state will spend
about $30 million
to support Florida's
manatees and their habitats.
- The state's
powerful agricultural lobby
has signaled their
support as well,
by adopting voluntary reductions
in harmful fertilizers
like phosphorus
that contribute directly
to algae blooms.
The modern focus on restoring
and healing entire habitats
represents a profound shift
in our thinking.
Conservation works when
humans from all walks
of life, farmers, fishermen,
nature lovers alike,
see themselves as integral
parts of a living ecosystem.
- Rewilding is really important
because we are looking
at how to restore ecological
species and functions
that have disappeared.
Well, we have to be careful
because we also
don't wanna play God.
- You need to know what
you're doing or you're putting
the animals at risk.
- We have to be so,
so careful about
unintended consequences.
If we don't take those
things into consideration,
we're doing more harm than good.
- Rewilding
isn't only about addition,
it's also about subtraction.
- Rewilding is really exciting,
but also there's lots
of things to consider.
If we look at Australia
with its amazing wildlife,
those animals are really
under threat right now
because of invasive species.
- But the species are
introduced into an area
where they have no
natural predators
and therefore go ballistic.
Then the risk is those
invasive species will drive
the native species
to extinction.
- The cane toad in Australia
was brought in to eat
the cane beetle, which was
destroying sugar cane crops.
Turns out, in Australia, cane
toads don't eat cane beetles.
Instead, they're poisonous
to things like quolls
and lizards and snakes
and other frogs.
Australia's frogs are being
decimated by cane toads.
So people thought they
were making a decision
that would help, but
instead have really,
really impacted negatively
on Australia's animals.
- So you either
have to find a way
of protecting those
native species
from the invasive species,
or you have to remove
the invasive species.
- The general public
may not really accept
the eradication of
invasive species,
but we really need to
move the invasive species
for the likelihood for survival
of those endemic species.
- So when humans move
one place or the other,
they usually bring the animals
and the plants with them.
And that happened in Australia
with European
colonization, rabbits,
cats and dogs and other
creatures travel with humans
and establish themselves.
Rabbits were very successful.
They grew and
spread very quickly.
- They don't have a natural
predator in Australia
because they didn't
evolve in Australia.
- And then the idea of
the European colonizers
was to bring in foxes
to control the rabbits.
- I think when we make
decisions that we think are
the right decisions at the time,
sometimes they have
unintended consequences.
- But the foxes found
it a lot easier to feed
on Australian mammals,
the marsupial mammals,
which were slower and
didn't have the kind
of predator response.
The consequence of that was
that the foxes started wiping
out the Australian mammals.
- The bandicoot is a
little tiny marsupial.
They're not very big.
They would sit in your
hand quite comfortably.
The problem for the
eastern barred bandicoot
is they evolved in a time
where their only predation
was aerial predation.
And so raptors, big
birds would hunt them
and their entire defense
mechanism is to sit in a bush
and not move at all.
And so that was a great defense
against aerial predation.
It's a disaster when cats
and foxes are introduced
into the habitat.
And so a strategy that had
worked well for millions
of years didn't work anymore.
- The bandicoot
population eventually dropped
so low that the only ones left
were those living in zoos.
- Like for everything
valuable in life,
it's good to have
insurance for it.
So for some of these
endangered species,
we've built populations
in zoos, aquaria,
botanic gardens,
and we manage them really well.
And that way we can use those
individuals and their genes
to reestablish wild populations.
- Insurance
populations have been used
around the world
to revive numbers of
near extinct species like
the Iberian lynx,
golden lion tamarin
and the Arabian oryx,
and now the bandicoot.
- And so we were able
to find fox-free habitats
to reintroduce them.
Fox-free habitats
are challenging.
There's a number of
ways you can do that.
One is with big fences,
but in Australia we have
animals like wombats
that go straight
underneath a fence
and create enough space for
anyone else to join them.
- And so we look to
islands as places
where we could feasibly
eradicate these invasive
or introduced predators.
- Historically,
island ecosystems
like Australia,
Madagascar, and Hawaii have
been the most vulnerable
to invasive species.
But in the age of rewilding,
islands could now be
the most practical refuge
against the invaders.
- The goal is to create
biodiversity hotspots on a range
of these islands where we
can get invasive species off
the island and restore
the wild and what it used
to look like pre the
impact of these species.
- Foxes were removed
from three local islands
that were suitable for
the tiny marsupial.
- And that's where we
really focused the release
of the bandicoots.
- The important
thing about rewilding
is that we make sure we
have the right species
in the right place at the
right time with the right kind
of management to make sure
that it really is gonna thrive.
- Remote
cameras monitored
any new fox incursions,
and dogs, which never
threatened the bandicoots,
were brought in as
their protectors.
The dogs, drawn from hunting
and herding breeds
like Great Pyrenees,
black labs and springer
spaniels can detect predators
and chase them off before
any damage is done.
- Dogs and their incredible
sensory perception
are a really critical tool
to help us in this fight
against extinction.
- Another
rewilding challenge,
the same species may be
invasive in one environment,
but endangered in another.
- In Colombia, there
has been an introduction
of hippos, associated
with Pablo Escobar.
- Cocaine kingpin
Pablo Escobar built himself
a private zoo in the heart
of the Colombian jungle.
Escobar smuggled four hippos
from an American wildlife
park into his menagerie
in Colombia, one male
and three females.
After Escobar's death in 1993,
his animals were sent
to reserves and zoos,
but the hippos escaped into
the nearby Magdalena River.
Their numbers exploded,
putting a massive strain
on the local ecosystem.
- The hippos,
they became wild,
so they escaped the
private zoo and became
a serious invader in Colombia.
- They pose a
danger to humans as well.
Hippos are the world's
deadliest land mammal,
responsible for over
500 deaths each year.
The current population
of hippos in the river
is growing exponentially.
Scientists estimate their
numbers will soon be over 1000.
Their unchecked growth
could re-engineer
the entire landscape at the
expense of native species.
- And it's the same scope
and the same organisms
that in one part of the
world are being driven
to extinction, in other part
of the world are driving
the other species to extinction.
And we have to deal with both
extremes, controlling them
in one place and saving
them in the other.
- The rewilding model
doesn't seek to define the value
of one animal over another.
It asks how a species functions
within its specific ecosystem.
- The African elephant
is losing more and more
of his habitat in Africa,
but where he is
safe and cared for,
he's just breeding too well.
You know, there are too many
elephants in too small places.
- They have an
overpopulation of elephants.
Several thousands. I was there.
I saw. They destroy
their own habitat.
And this habitat is
also lost for all
the other species living there.
The solution would be,
they can go all over
Africa as they did hundreds
of years ago, but that
is not possible anymore.
- The reality is there
are fences there to keep
the animals in and
threats like poachers out.
- So the big animals are not
really free-ranging animals,
so they cannot go out.
Then you have to manage them.
So it's a big,
big issue and a big problem
and a big discussion.
Do we have to cull
these animals?
- Sustainable hunting
presents numerous ecological
challenges and
ethical complexities.
- Sustainable hunting
is absolutely something
which works, for example,
in Europe very well.
Especially if you
think about the wolf.
The wolf is coming
back to Germany.
He's making problems already.
He's taking sheep, even horses.
And we had the discussion,
will we hunt the wolf?
And if you see where
in Europe the wolves
have a good population, it's
exactly in the countries
where they hunt wolves.
So hunting can be a
tool, a proper hunting,
a controlled hunting, a
legal hunting can be a tool
in our completely
changed environment.
- It's easy
to imagine a scenario
in which hunting can
be useful to control
an overly aggressive predator.
But what about hunting
for sport or profit?
- Trophy hunting?
It's complicated.
- Trophy hunting
means different things
to different people.
Hunting ethics are
fiercely debated,
even among hunters themselves.
- Trophy hunting is
hunting of senile
and old wild animals with the
purpose of generating money
to support conservation.
- If you shoot an old animal,
which is not any
more putting genetics
into the population,
you can say it's okay.
It's not okay probably for
the animal which got shot,
but he will die in a
year or so by himself.
And if the meat goes
to the communities,
if the money the people
pay for that goes
to conservation, the
species can thrive
through this kind of hunting.
- That is crucial that
we only can save species
and we cannot save each
individual specimen.
- We lose one animal to
save the rest of the family.
- The trick is in doing it well.
'Cause if we don't do it well,
we can have the opposite
effect and do damage.
- Because it can
be prone to abuse.
- The lions bred for
slaughter by rich tourists,
what's known as canned hunting.
- The problem is that
there are trophy huntings
which are illegal, where
they breed animals somewhere
in the backyards and
then just open a cage
and let them out and some
crazy people kill this animal.
That is something I
absolutely can't see.
I really hate that.
- So it is a bit
of a risky venture.
- Anger is growing tonight
over the American dentist
who hunted and killed a lion
in Africa that turned out
to be well known and
beloved by tourists.
- I think about Cecil the lion.
I think about that
dentist who paid
to kill these
incredible animals.
That is morally wrong, ethically
wrong, and it should stop.
- Trophy
hunting can also violate
religious practices
or cultural beliefs.
- In India, any sort of
killing of animal is a sort
of taboo in our religion.
Like all the animals
have got the same right
to live like human being.
- From an intellectual
standpoint,
I certainly can understand
that it's a very complex issue,
but I still think it's wrong.
Quite frankly we can
move that animal.
We can fundraise by
bringing that animal
into an environment
where someone can meet it
for the first time.
Meeting an elephant
for the first time,
that's an opportunity
to raise funds to ensure
that not only that one
elephant has a great life,
but an entire herd in
a natural environment.
- Is it
as simple as that?
Can humans just
move animals around?
- Well, we did it with
the beavers in Denmark.
Beavers had disappeared
from Danish nature
many years ago,
and they are really
good landscape engineers
because they cut down the
trees, they make dams,
and so they actually
raise water levels,
so they're really good
for shaping new habitats.
Since they wouldn't be
able to come by themselves
from Germany, we took some
animals from a wild population
in Germany, moved them
to a place in Denmark,
released them and
it works very well.
- Other countries
are now restoring beavers
to rewild habitats and
seeing profound improvements
to ecosystem health.
- There has been
translocation of key species,
in particular, giraffes.
Giraffes have been
translocated from one park
to another and they're
doing very, very well.
- Species translocation
has proven effective,
but also brings steep financial
and logistical hurdles,
with risks to both
humans and animals,
such as the spread of diseases.
And just because a
translocated animal
is the same species
doesn't guarantee
a healthy, long-term
population rebound,
the ultimate objective.
Self-sustaining population
growth is the goal of this
daring and unconventional
new rewilding project,
one that aims to return
an iconic species.
India has a long
and storied history
with the Asiatic cheetah.
The maharajas prized
cheetahs for their speed,
and even domesticated them
as hunting companions.
But the British colonialists
hunted the cheetah
to be stuffed for trophies.
Modern India's
population boom consumed
the cheetah's
traditional habitat.
- The last cheetah
was shot in 1948.
- That
deep-rooted connection
to the Asiatic cheetah
has made the cats'
reintroduction
a matter of national pride.
- There are a lot
of discussionS going
on a government level.
We should bring back
cheetahs to India.
- By reintroducing them in
this grassland ecosystem,
we are going to rectify
that wrong which was done.
- But reintroducing
the Asiatic cheetah
was no simple matter as
their numbers had dipped
to near zero.
- When we talk of locally
extinct means it became extinct
in India. They are
still there in Iran.
- For decades,
India negotiated with Iran,
home to the last extent
Asiatic cheetahs on Earth,
but none were available
to relocate to India.
- Actually the population in
Iran is not itself very good.
- There are just few tens
of individuals there.
- So this was the only option.
We had to get the
animals from Africa.
- Scientists
turned to sub-Saharan Africa.
- But it's technically
not a reintroduction.
It's what we call an
ecological replacement.
And that's a replacement
because we're not putting
the exact same population,
same subspecies into here,
but bringing one from Africa.
- These two
subspecies diverged
from each other around
70,000 years ago.
- It might have adaptations
to the local ecosystem
that are not adequate
for the new ecosystem.
So although they're
the same species,
they might be
different ecologically.
- If you put an animal
into an environment
where it's not supposed to be,
it's not likely that that
animal itself will survive.
It doesn't know how to eat,
it doesn't know how
to avoid predators.
And in a lot of places it's
just about saving the species.
But then we also have to
think about subspecies.
- So although a species
might not go extinct
as a species, as
populations disappear
and the range shrinks, we
start losing local adaptations
to different ecosystem
types, different climates.
- The African
cheetah is clearly
a non-native exotic
species to India.
But what's not clear is
whether its introduction will
have a positive or negative
effect on the local ecosystem.
- I like to see nature
as close as possible
to its original state.
And in that sense,
I feel that there
are more benefits
than disadvantages because
you're bringing us something
that is pretty close, I agree
that we could be even closer,
but it's hard to be able to
make that happen in reality.
- I personally believe
that if we can get those
animals back out functioning
in the ecosystem and not
having big, unintended
consequences, then great.
- Out of the 20 cheetahs
that were bought to India
from Namibia and South
Africa, only 14 are left.
- Yes, it sounds alarming,
but this is the norm for
wild cheetah reintroduction.
- So it's an experiment,
the process is on-going,
it has happened and it'll be
a great opportunity to see
if they succeed, and if
they don't, learn from it
and try to do it
better the next time.
- So one of the things
that really worries us
is this invisible
extinction that's going
on where populations
are just disappearing
and it's not noticed,
especially in species
that are more numerous
and more widespread.
If you look at giraffes,
the species itself overall
is probably around 125,000
to 150,000 giraffes in Africa,
which is quite a large number.
They're declining and sort
of potentially at risk
of extinction, but
not imminently.
But if you start to look at some
of those different types,
then you get to things
like Rothschild's giraffe
where there's less than 2000.
So we now have a population
of Rothschild's giraffes
that we breed.
So we're preserving
the genetic stock
of that particular population,
that particular type of giraffe.
- Is a giraffe a
giraffe a giraffe?
Or are there different
genetics that we need
to make sure we're
protecting as well?
And those are hard
decisions to make.
Some people think as long
as we don't lose
giraffes entirely,
then we can just
move giraffes around.
Whereas others are really
fiercely protective
of subspecies and
wanna make sure
we're conserving the genetics.
And I think it really
comes down to making sure
we use all of the
tools in our toolbox,
making sure that the genetic
scientists are protecting
the genetic
diversity of giraffes,
and working with the field
practitioners and the rangers
to understand the
implications on the ground.
- Rewilding is
incredibly hard to do.
- It is incredibly
difficult to do
that with mammals, especially
with large mammals.
We all wish we could have
more elephants and tigers
and rhinos in our forests, but
it is really hard to achieve.
What is quite possible to do
is rewilding smaller species
such as birds or reptiles,
turtles in particular.
- We can potentially, with
the expertise of good zoos,
step in and do some
captive breeding or some
wild introductions
into certain areas
to help repopulate species.
- Restoring
the Lear's macaw
to the Brazilian desert involved
a different challenge,
retraining human-bred animals
in the skills and instincts
necessary to thrive in the wild.
Lear's macaw evolved
to the harsh conditions
of a specific landscape,
the dry shrublands
and sandstone canyons
of northeastern Brazil.
Habitat loss, poaching and
the illegal pet trade led them
to near extinction in the '80s.
Two pairs of Lear's
macaws were recovered
from the black market
pet trade and brought
to Loro Parque in
Tenerife, Spain.
- So we got two couples,
four individuals to Loro
Parque and within six months
we had the first fledge,
that means the first chick
raised from these Lear macaws.
Since then, we
reproduced 41 chicks.
- Zoos and aquariums have
become the emergency room
or the intensive care unit
for many, many species,
breeding endangered species
for reintroduction of the wild.
- But breeding
macaws was only the first step.
Their goal was to return the
birds to their natural habitat.
These birds had spent their
entire lives in human care.
They had no idea how
to survive in the wild.
So it was up to the
biologists at Loro Parque
to teach the birds
how to be wild again.
- When you have a bird
that's born in managed care,
we need to teach them fear.
- Once we
introduce them into the aviary
for the release, but we use
tape recording to train them
to be aware of the danger.
It's very different
what they eat and drink
in nature because in
human care we offer them,
for example, water,
which we will withdraw
throughout the training.
The difficulty of
hydration in the Caatinga
where it never rains
is that these birds,
they actually have to find
the liquid palm tree to eat
their coconuts, which are
very small, very hard,
and there's just one
drop of water in.
So they have to find lots
of these little coconuts
to get their hydration.
- 19 birds were
reintroduced from Loro Parque
back to their homeland.
- And now they're successfully
flying in the Caatinga again
and most importantly
they've already reproduced.
- The threat of
ecosystem collapse is global,
but the future of
conservation is local.
- I've done community
conservation in Borneo,
and what I've seen is if a
community's happy and healthy,
if they can feed themselves
and if they can send
their children to school,
they will be there to
fight for the forest.
And here's what's so important.
If there isn't somebody
there watching over habitat,
it could easily be gone.
- Rewilding
emphasizes the connections
between natural ecosystems
and human communities,
especially indigenous
groups whose contributions
and knowledge have
long been overlooked.
But in recent years,
an encouraging
statistic has emerged.
Environmental degradation
has been less severe
or even avoided entirely
in areas inhabited
by native peoples.
Surprisingly, one quarter of
the Earth's land is managed
by indigenous and
local communities.
Their deep-rooted connections
to ancestral lands
have protected wildlife
for future generations.
Designating land
as a national park
or nature reserve means nothing
without proper oversight.
Illegal logging and
mining operations
have annihilated protected
areas from Brazil
to Borneo, stripping
forests bare
and destroying
entire ecosystems.
- What was shocking my first
time to Borneo is the number
of logs that were coming
out of the national park
on a daily basis.
They're going out
on small barges
literally 24 hours a day,
week upon week upon week.
- The
uneven success rate
of wildlife reserves suggests
that government-protected
land still needs more local
and tribal involvement.
But historically,
conservation work
has excluded native communities.
Many of the world's iconic
protected areas like Yosemite
in the US were created
by the cruel displacement
of native people.
But as indigenous groups
assert a more active role
in managing the
resources and wildlife
of their traditional lands,
they face increasing
resistance and danger.
- Illegal
gold miners exploiting
and destroying the
rivers and land,
intimidating and
firing at Yanomami.
- Unfortunately, the
work in conservation
has become dangerous.
- The desperate search for
an indigenous rights advocate
and renowned journalist in
a remote area of the Amazon
in Brazil has apparently
come to a grim conclusion.
- Brazilian authorities
have recovered the bodies
of British journalists,
Dom Phillips
and his expert
guide, Bruno Pereira.
- Recent figures of the number
of environmental defenders
killed is especially serious
in Latin America, and Brazil,
Colombia, and Mexico are
well known for being
at the top of the list.
It is mainly people
who are challenging large
interests like mining
and logging typically
are the ones
that have the biggest problems.
It's a very serious issue.
We have to make sure
that citizens around
the world become aware and
start doing something about it.
- Rewilding
is a path to peace,
for a fragile planet
at war with itself,
a peace that protects the future
of Earth's most
misunderstood pollinators.
- There are 1,400
species of bats,
and most of them are
insect-feeding bats.
They are pollinators for
hundreds of species of plants.
They are doing amazing
services for us humans.
But what people know,
it's vampire bats,
which is only three species.
People only can think
about Dracula, blood,
even Batman, you know?
Wanted people to
be afraid of him.
- I'm Batman.
- Despite the
crucial role bats play
in their ecosystem, these
furry flying mammals
are often treated as if
they were invasive pests.
- In caves where
there are big groups
of bats living there,
people will go and
put fire on the cave.
That's why education
is so important,
because if you tell people
that that bat is feeding
on mosquitoes that
you don't like,
on mosquitoes that can
transmit diseases,
if people knew that,
I'm pretty sure they
wouldn't attack them.
- It's the whole picture.
It's the environment,
it's the habitat
and how they all
interplay with one another
that we're looking at.
And it's gonna take all of
us to figure out what to do
to continue to live
together in harmony.
- There is hope. I
always have hope.
- What gives me hope
is partnerships.
- We also collaborate
with each other,
so that giving us a
hope not just right now,
but also for the future.
- And that is exactly
what we need to tell.
We need to tell stories of hope.
- There is hope,
and I think that's
something we forget
or we don't see often because
there are so many stories
of doom and gloom.
But there is a lot
of hope and a lot
of success stories out there.
- We're sharing
scientists' stories.
We're sharing their story
of animals on the brink
of extinction and how
we're bringing them back,
how we're rewilding,
how we're seeing natural
habitats come back to life.
That's exciting. We have
more stories to tell.
- The work isn't done. We
are just getting started.
- In Victoria, we have
1,995 endangered species.
And it sounds like
an enormous number,
until you remember just how
many of us there are as humans.
What if we each picked
one species to conserve?
Suddenly that number's
not daunting at all.
Suddenly we'll have teams of
people working to save each
and every species.
And all we have to
do is care about one.
We don't all have to
care about all of them.
- We have to live in
a sustainable way.
That means our living
can't harm other species.
- We have to take care
of them like we take care
of our children.
- So let's get our force
together, get our momentum,
and make a change,
a valid change in our community
to make sure that there is
a future for wildlife
in wild places.
- And rewilding is possible.
There are so many examples
where we are bringing
species back from the brink
of extinction and they're
starting to thrive again
in their wild environments.
As long as we ask
the right questions
with the right people in the
room, we can save species,
we can save ecosystems.
We just need to be working
together and doing more of it.
- Everything
can be recuperated.